Student device surveillance catching more than just potential threats, district says
WEST, Texas (KWTX) - The Google surveillance software called Gaggle, is currently in 1,500 K-12 districts in the country, including West ISD where it says the program sends student activity for review in real time, stopping potential threats, bullying and self harm.
Though the district has been using the software since 2020, its use became widely known after its high school was put on lockdown when the system flagged a student writing about having a gun.
Officials in the Juvenile Correction Office confirmed to KWTX the student underwent a psychological evaluation and was released to their parents. The case is still pending. West ISD says per its Code of Conduct, the student was referred to its district alternative education program.
West ISD says it already had filters blocking student access where it saw fit but wanted more.
“We felt like we needed a second layer of protection,” Assistant Superintendent Amanda Adams said.
Gaggle was added to all school issued chrome books in 2020 and works hand in hand with its other Google services like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Sheets.
“When [students are] typing something, Google auto saves so any time when it auto saves that pushes it through Gaggle so we’re able to catch things a lot quicker than with a filter,” Adams said.
“When that key word search hits, it goes to the Gaggle team, the Gaggle team is a person who verifies is this really something or not. A person at Gaggle is verifying it, so its verified by humans.”
Some flags turn about to be a student working on a school assignment or college essay, so the software uses a green to red flag scale for the person to assign the hit.
Red flags are possible student situations. In those cases, a person in the district immediately gets a call.
“They will call until they get a person through a hierarchy on our list,” Adams said.
The Gaggle team member will go through a list of school officials and could even escalate the call to police if they can’t get ahold of anyone.
“Its not just for school threats,” Adams clarified. “Its for concerns about mental health, bullying, cyber bullying.”
Just last week, she says a case was escalated to a red flag.
“Last Friday night we had an incident come in on a Gmail after hours. Our students have a chrome book and this student was using a Gmail at night. I got a call, our superintendent got a call, he was able to step out of a restaurant and call and speak with those parents and make sure that kiddo was ok,” Adams recalled.
As a company, Gaggle reported saving hundreds of students from suicide in the 2018-2019 school year.
“We strive to provide as much mental health help and counseling as we can and this gives us the capacity to do that,” Adams said.
West ISD says the categories flagged in the system include “suicide”, “self-harm”, “violence towards others”, “harassment”, “drugs and alcohol”, and “sexual content”.
Adams says the list is pre set by the company and the district isn’t able to make modifications.
Critics of the service question if a students every words should be watched so closely, however, Adams says when kids are using school equipment its up to the school to protect them in that use.
“I would not want to be in this network environment that we’re in where every kiddo has a chrome book without these safe guards,” she said.
“Our parents and our kids sign an agreement that they know we are monitoring and filtering with different products.”
Adams says the district uses incidents discovered through Gaggle as teachable moments.
“That student is then made aware that we found this out by being able to know what happened in their Gmail or their document and its a teachable moment for us to be able to show them how powerful the internet can be,” Adams explained.
The service costs the district $4,0254 a year. If West ISD ever ends its subscription, Adams says the data will be turned back over to the district and not stored by the company.
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